


Pieces

by Littorella



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Existentialism, Illustrated, Introspection, M/M, Missing Scene, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-04-22 15:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14311419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littorella/pseuds/Littorella
Summary: Viktor is a man of contradictions. He cultivates them with the same athleticism with which he approaches the ice, but beneath it all, he fights desperately to keep a single coherent story he can tell himself.A character study series of ficlets and illustrations.





	1. Flight

**Author's Note:**

> I am trying to write again. Go easy on me; it's all experimental.  
> I'm far more prolific as an artist. Visit me on [tumblr](http://littorella.tumblr.com) for related art.

Viktor paused at the door to give his home one last sweeping glance.

Waning light of afternoon trapped everything in a collapsing stillness. The encased silence was deafening, warping into a steadily louder hum the longer he stood.

As if sensing his thoughts, Makkachin whined and pawed at the open door. Viktor gave his dog a fond smile and pat on the head. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you miss your first flight,” he whispered, “We’ll leave for Japan in a moment.”

Worried eyes darted back to the living room, drawn by the call of its familiarity. His hand gripped the handle of his luggage with excessive force when the thought of leaving floated back. But he wanted to leave, he reminded himself. Even the mere sensation of momentary dread prickling in his chest was a richer emotion than anything he’d felt in ages.

“You have a lovely life,” the photographer had said when she finished snapping photos for her magazine. A lovely home. Lovely career. Lovely fans. She traced the smooth gold of his latest medal with an envious touch. He could only reply with an apologetic smile as he took it back from her hand. The memory of how lifeless the cold metal felt weighed fresh in his mind as he surveyed the home he was leaving behind. All these things were his because he could have them, not because he desired them.

He landed an impossible combination and felt nothing new. He won another championship and still felt nothing. They came so easily that he’d forgotten what it was to reach beyond his grasp; his count of things to want had simply diminished to none.

But seeing Katuski Yuuri skate through the gleam of an electronic screen chased doubt. The way he dug his skates hard into the ice and fought for every jump stirred in Viktor an uneasy suspicion that there was perhaps a part of this world he was completely blind to. It was an idea so captivating he could not turn away.

It murmured in his ear the promise of unknowable emotion still to be experienced.

Yet he lingered against the doorway still trying to decide if it had been just a passing delusion. Desperation can make fools of even the most rational man. Was such a gamble really worth the cost? Everything he’d done for twenty years, all the assets he’d gathered, thrown aside on a whim. “If you go, don’t come back. I don’t think I can forgive you for this,” Yakov had said as he shook his fist dramatically.

Yes, he had to tell himself again, he wanted this.

He caught his own reflection in his mirror by the door. The image stared back at him with unexpected determination in clearest blue. _I won’t forgive you if you stay._

Viktor stepped outside with Makkachin and closed the door without hesitation. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [WeWriteVictuuri](https://wewritevictuuri.tumblr.com/) prompt challenge _I won't forgive you for this._


	2. Touch

Nervous.

Worried.

Lonely.

Viktor tried to fish for the right term to describe what he was feeling after leaving Yuuri at the Rostelecom Cup. He was nervous about Makkachin’s health. Worried about Yuuri competing in Moscow alone. Lonely to be in a foreign country by himself. Yes, those things were all true. But he also knew they were too simple. None of those words were able to capture the fierce emotion gnawing at him.

He laid awake at night playing the feeling repeatedly, trying but continually failing to put words to it. It was so new and foreign to him that he could only think to describe the physical effects it had. His senses were fading, mind dissociating away from the soup of sensation that was the body.

Food registered as being delicious, but he tasted nothing. The onsen burned him with its heat, but he felt nothing. Fallen down but still alive.

The days apart from Yuuri felt like an eternity. There were the texts and calls, the care of the Katsuki family, yet he’d felt the distance all the same. Everyone was generous with their words. Hiroko was especially kind with her quiet reassurances and exaggerated gestures, but he could barely register her voice. But words alone could not quiet the erratic panic slowly chewing through his stomach.

“Vicchan is not feeling well,” he heard her whisper and instantly felt guilty. He hadn’t meant for it to be so obvious. Viktor put up a brave face, smiled, and forced himself to eat his tasteless dinner.

What was this madness?

He’d spent the better part of two days trying to make sense of it, but he drew a blank even as he sat in the arrivals area waiting with Makkachin. It was not until he saw Yuuri through the glass that he finally understood. His face fell the moment he knew, betraying the storm inside.

It was in that instant that he saw with painful clarity what was wrong--the ache inside was hunger. He was starving for the rich sensation of Yuuri’s touch, yearning for the warmth of his skin like a dolphin yearns for water. The first feel of Yuuri’s arms around him is intoxicating. It was all he could do to not lock them in the embrace and stay there for hours. 

They had places to be, so he did the next best thing. Viktor held Yuuri’s hand the entire way back, only breaking contact to help him with his luggage up some stairs. It was barely enough.

“People will talk,” Yuuri said gently when they arrived at Yu-topia, stopping at the door and moving to pull his hand away.

“Let them,” Viktor replied, holding on as if his life depended on it, “I don’t care.”

Yuuri paused, looking down at their clasped hands. The hesitation caused Viktor’s heart to sink, and he began to loosen his grasp. To his surprise, Yuuri caught the motion and tightened his fingers, entwining them further. He leaned forward and placed a small kiss on Viktor’s cheek.

“If you don’t care, then I don’t either,” Yuuri whispered into his ear.

Color flushed Viktor’s face from the force of his heart trying to swim out of his chest. He gave a smile as he indulged in the warmth of skin melding together.

“Let’s go inside. It’s cold.”

He wanted to drown in touch forever.


	3. Reputations

Minako spoke with her hands, jostling her full glass of alcohol as she drew her words into the air. It was often like this: her explaining a dramatic story, and Viktor listening as they lost track of the glasses they’ve consumed. Always him listening, for he had few interesting stories of his own to tell. **  
**

He drank in the vivid recounts of her adventures, her failures, her regrets with envy.

“Maybe you should set that down,” Viktor suggested as he watched a bit of her drink spill onto the counter between them. He gave her a kind smile, but it only served to agitate her.

“Stop it,” she replied, unexpectedly serious after an evening of jovial tone, “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t...like it.” Her words slurred from the haze of one too many.

“Like how?”

The woman put down her drink and fixed her eyes on him with an intensity that startled him. “Like...like you care. Like I am an interesting person.”

He furrowed his brow and gave a confused look before replying, “I don’t understand. I do care what you have to say.”

The glass landed on the counter with a loud thunk. Minako leaned forward, her usual grace stolen by drunken lethargy. “I know who you are, Viktor. When you are as old as I am, you meet the same people over and over. I have met a person like you before,” she drawled, shaking a knowing finger at him, “ You kill with kindness. You listen and you smile and you make us think we are important. But you will lose interest. You will leave disappointment behind you.”

“Minako--” He was at a loss for words. After all this time together, her impression of him was so flimsy that he wasn’t even a unique person in her mind.

“You watch yourself,” she warned, leaning on her elbows, “Yuuri’s heart is a breakable thread.” Tucking her hair behind an ear, Minako cast her eyes down with a forlorn expression. “Yuuri is not like you. He will do better if he knows better. Men like you choose wrong despite knowing better.”

Viktor stared at her in silence when she slumped forward and laid her face on the counter, eyes closing.

It took him several minutes to think through what he should say.  Perhaps it had been a mistake to perpetuate the reputations given to him. He’d considered it generous and selfless to give people what they wanted, yet it seemed a disservice in hindsight. She hadn’t intended it in an exact manner, but she was correct in her assessment.

He  _was_  a man who chose wrong, a second-hander who purposefully lived to the expectations of others despite knowing it wasn’t what he wanted. It was so natural he’d stopped being able to notice when it happened.

“I’m sorry someone once broke your heart, Minako,” he finally offered.

The drunk woman jerked up at the sound of his voice. She blinked in her stupor and muttered, “What were we talking about?”

He lied easily, “The time you started a bar fight in Rome.”

She covered half her face with her hand and blew out a long breath, “The 90s were a hell of a decade.”

Viktor laughed but caught himself wondering if he really found it funny or if he simply wanted to please her. No, he decided, that was an objectively funny statement.


	4. Barcelona

Barcelona, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, Paris, Chicago.

They had all begun to blur together for Viktor after a while.

Subways, streets, sidewalks, stone buildings, glass towers, cafes, people rushing to get places, tourists taking photographs. They all started to feel alike. The languages and people were different, but all cities seemed like the same expression, a convergence of the limit of what humanity could imagine. It didn’t matter if he didn’t speak the language; he was never lost. The way back was always a few pieces of currency and a taxi away.

There was no wonder, no wilderness, no discovery left.

But something was different this time.

As he walked down Passeig de Gràcia, hand in hand with Yuuri, he stopped before Casa Batlló and froze in mid-step. Yuuri glanced at him in surprise, unsure of why they’d stopped.

Viktor stared at the blue-lit front of the Gaudí design, breathless and still. He’d walked past this stretch of city many times on his own before, but he’d never noticed it really. The evening spotlights on the building were bluer than the deepest aquarium he’d seen before, the curves of the balconies more whimsical than anything he’d ever dreamed.

“Do you want to go on a tour?” Yuuri asked, “We can probably find time tomorrow.”

“We don’t need to,” Viktor replied softly, still entranced by the emanating light cast from the house.

When he turned, the world seemed to spin, overwhelming his senses. The yellow street lamps glowed like flowers, the giant electronic screen advertising Desigual vibrant and colorful like freshly spilled dye, the laughter of people eating tapas on the sidewalk deafening. A florist on the side street rearranging his plants suddenly seemed so close he could almost smell the scent of the white roses in his arms and the green sap of stems cut. It was all so clear in focus.

Had this always been here?

He’d walked around this part of the city countless times alone and never noticed anything. All he ever remembered was odd octagon city blocks and going to the El Corte Inglés basement to eat torrijas. He couldn’t even recall what they tasted like.

Yuuri gave a confused look. “Is something wrong?”

Viktor took in a sharp breath and finally looked at Yuuri, the only still thing in a blur of color and motion. He felt like he was going cry. This city was so beautiful, radiant in its special light, all because Yuuri was here with him. It was like he had arrived for the first time, eyes opening finally after being blind for eternity.

He smiled and squeezed Yuuri’s hand as though he was never going to let go again.

“Thank you for being here with me.”

 

* * *

**Notes:**  I used to travel internationally a lot as a consultant and watching the Barcelona episodes reminded me of when I would work there, walking around all these beautiful landmarks alone.


End file.
